Despite a weather forecast that suggested a cloudy, even stormy day, our last day in Cape Town is a scorcher. Even the mountain is visible today.
We wanted to visit District 6. This is the eastern district of the city about a mile and a half walk from our hotel that was razed to the ground over a fifteen year period by the apartheid government.
In the 1960s the government designated what was known as District 6 a whites only zone and declared that the whole area housing a thriving multiple-cultural community that had grown and developed since the late 1890s should be cleared to create more space for the white population. The residents were resettled in areas outside the city centre in race-based townships and every single building throughout the neighborhood was demolished. Despite protests this was carried through and over 150,000 black, asian and mixed race people were forcibly resettled, their homes and businesses demolished and their communities destroyed. The District 6 museum is a history of these events and its founder and curator, whom we met and talked to at length was a young man living in the heart of this community when this was happening. Now he is back not only at the helm of this museum, but also as part of the movement trying to return this land to some of its former inhabitants. Amazingly, since the demolition work in the sixties and seventies and even early nineteen eighties, the land has remained unoccupied and undeveloped.
One might hope that over the next few years, some of the families dispossessed by successive apartheid governments might see some justice. Our curator is not particularly optimistic, citing government corruption, high unemployment and a high crime rate as almost insurmountable obstacles. He also sees the pro-black discrimination in current employment laws as being highly counter-productive. As ever the people on the ground can see what needs to happen and those in government do nothing but line their own pockets.
In the years ahead, either South Africa will change or it will gradually become another basket case like Zimbabwe, which would be a shame.
We wanted to visit District 6. This is the eastern district of the city about a mile and a half walk from our hotel that was razed to the ground over a fifteen year period by the apartheid government.
In the 1960s the government designated what was known as District 6 a whites only zone and declared that the whole area housing a thriving multiple-cultural community that had grown and developed since the late 1890s should be cleared to create more space for the white population. The residents were resettled in areas outside the city centre in race-based townships and every single building throughout the neighborhood was demolished. Despite protests this was carried through and over 150,000 black, asian and mixed race people were forcibly resettled, their homes and businesses demolished and their communities destroyed. The District 6 museum is a history of these events and its founder and curator, whom we met and talked to at length was a young man living in the heart of this community when this was happening. Now he is back not only at the helm of this museum, but also as part of the movement trying to return this land to some of its former inhabitants. Amazingly, since the demolition work in the sixties and seventies and even early nineteen eighties, the land has remained unoccupied and undeveloped.
One might hope that over the next few years, some of the families dispossessed by successive apartheid governments might see some justice. Our curator is not particularly optimistic, citing government corruption, high unemployment and a high crime rate as almost insurmountable obstacles. He also sees the pro-black discrimination in current employment laws as being highly counter-productive. As ever the people on the ground can see what needs to happen and those in government do nothing but line their own pockets.
In the years ahead, either South Africa will change or it will gradually become another basket case like Zimbabwe, which would be a shame.
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